A blog about the history, current state, and the future of the electric guitar and tube-based amplifier combo and how this de rigueur musical instrument that matured during the Rock N' Roll-era continues to both evolve and refuses to die.

Since the heyday of Les Paul to recent concerts of Yngwie
Malmsteen or Joe Satriani that still attract hoards of electric guitar music
fans, it seems like the paper coned loudspeaker – especially ones with a
whizzer cone and seems to have dated back to the early 1920s – had been exerting
a stranglehold on the electrical musical instrument industry as the only
musical instrument loudspeaker suitable for electric guitar playing use. But
how did such a self-made paper coned loudspeaker empire came to reign over the
electric guitar playing world?

Guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen may have recently endorsed
paper coned loudspeakers as the only ones suitable for serious electric guitar
use. A recent “tone testament” by Malmsteen on the paper coned Celestion
G12T-75 speaker shows his praise for its fluidity and praises its violin-like
tone sustain and feel that compliments his style of guitar playing only
reinforces the facts – and preconceived notions - surrounding paper coned loudspeakers use in
the electric guitar playing world. Boutique Marshall electric guitar amplifiers
that use their exclusive paper coned Sheffield speakers still further
reinforces the perception even more.

Enthusiasts in the audiophile world who are heavily into
rock music are not helping much either. Retro-looking hi-fi loudspeaker systems
made in the 1990s like that by Lowther that looks like it dates from the early
1920s with its horn-loaded paper coned alnico-magnet equipped loudspeaker with
a whizzer cone are often praised for its realistic rendition of late 1980s
electric guitar heavy hair metal era heavy metal music. Given that electric
guitar and hi-fi speaker system for playback both use paper coned loudspeakers -
it is safe to assume, and in actuality, that both seem to compliment each other
seamlessly.

Hi-fi reviewers can never be accused of being miserly in
their praise for paper coned loudspeakers and their righteous reproduction of
electric guitar based heavy metal music. Hi-Fi World magazine reviewer Douglas
Floyd-Douglass stated in the October 1995 issue of the magazine on his review
of the Wharfedale Valdus 500 that: “Lead and rhythm guitars sound excellent,
which I’d attribute to the paper cones – a favorite choice used in hundreds of
famous electric guitar amplifiers. Their partiality to rock was further
emphasized by Richie Blackmore’s scorching lead and powerful backing on
‘Rainbow’s Power’ and Miss Mistreated’.” And high-end hi-fi manufacturer
Yamamura Churchill further reinforces the mystique surrounding paper coned
hi-fi loudspeakers with the use of rare paper from Japan made from select
bamboo pulp as its “magic ingredient”. Given the dominance of paper coned
loudspeakers in the electric guitar and hi-fi world, how does the alternative
cone materials fare?

Around the late 1980s, an electric bass guitar amplification
manufacturing firm named Hartke Systems had used metal coned – as in aluminum
coned - loudspeakers to go with their electric bass guitar amplifiers. Around
that time, Hartke Systems electric bass guitar amplification systems were used by
Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton among others and many of its users say that
Hartke’s aluminum coned speakers provide a big, clear dynamic sound on top with
maximum punch on the bottom, though nobody tested it for heavily distorted loud
electric guitar use for obvious reasons.

Part of what makes paper coned electric guitar loudspeaker
and vacuum tube amp system like Marshall’s have a “musically desirable” tone is
due to the fact that paper coned loudspeakers act – according to the laws of
acoustics – like a bandpass filter that works between the audio frequency of
75-Hz to around 6,000-Hz. Especially with a distorted electric guitar tone,
high frequencies produced by an overdriven tube amp that sounds bad to our ears
– and can destroy tweeters - are brought down to desirably pleasing levels via
the paper coned loudspeakers inherent inability to produce very high audio
frequencies. While the paper coned loudspeaker’s inability to produce lower
bass frequencies below 75-Hz – as it is most often mounted in an open baffle
configuration in electric guitar applications – filter the “reactance thumps”
between the electric guitar strings and the pickups that can easily overload
dynamic microphones in live stage miking situations.

I’ve also experienced using first hand a mineral-filled
polypropylene coned loudspeaker into electric guitar use back in the late 1980s
and all I can say is – it was the quackiest mess I’ve ever heard. Unless you
are doing a rock concert scene for a sequel of Howard The Duck or a quacky, parody
version of Mötley Crüe’s Kickstart My Heart, mineral-filled polypropylene coned
loudspeakers are only suitable for domestic hi-fi use, as they have been since
the mid 1970s, when they are not played too loud. It seems like paper coned
loudspeakers are the only ones that distorts in a musically consonant manner
when played at excruciatingly loud levels.

Even though 9-volt battery powered electric guitar
distortion pedals that use germanium transistors are the best ones around, how
come these types are still a rarity?

By: Ringo Bones

Every self-respecting electric guitar wielding musician with
experience knows that germanium transistor based 9-volt battery powered
electric guitar distortion pedals are the best there is – as in those 21st
Century era reissues of Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face pedals now starting to appear
again in musical instrument stores. Even though such pedals are not that
expensive in terms of quality guitar accessories – at around 150 to 300 US
dollars each – why then are germanium transistor based electric guitar distortion
pedals rarer than their silicon transistor based or even integrated circuit /
IC operational amplifier based counterparts?

The reality is, germanium transistors – which are the first
of its type mass produced for commercial applications during the 1950s onto the
early 1960s are not very stable and somewhat difficult to manufacture compared
to more modern silicon transistors and semiconductor devices. Even during the
start of the 1960s where the relatively affordable prices of transistorized
radios started to capture the market previously dominated by vacuum tube based
radios, germanium transistors are very hard to mass produce with consistent
parameter quality. Electronic enthusiasts “toying” with germanium transistors
during the early 1960s have noticed first hand that they have very variable
gain, leakage, noise and overall tone – even germanium transistors manufactured
from the same batch.

The inherent parameter variability of germanium transistors
means resistor values selected for proper AC and DC biasing, feedback, gain and
stability that worked fine on one functioning circuit – like an electric guitar
distortion pedal – will have to be “tweaked” (use a slightly higher or lower
resistor value) to make one sound as close as possible to the previously
finished circuit – even from germanium transistors of the same batch. Thus
making the manufacture of germanium transistor based electric guitar distortion
pedals a somewhat very labor intensive endeavor.

Although, one can make silicon transistor or even I.C.
op-amp based electric guitar distortion pedals approach the sound of germanium
transistor types by using germanium signal clipping diodes in the feedback
loop, purists still prefer the tone of the authentic germanium transistor based
electric guitar distortion pedal, especially if your hi-fi system is righteous
enough to realistically reproduce the guitar intro of Iron Maiden’s Two Minutes
To Midnight – as in the original vinyl or the mid 1990s era Sony Super Bit
Mapped CD reissue. The Sony Super Bit Mapped mastering even brought out the
“germanium signature noise” on the very start of this iconic Iron Maiden track.